How good was it? Totally inspirational is what it was. I am 41 years old and I almost had a tear in my eye it was so brilliant. 'Brutal Planet' is album of the year in my book so I am bias, but when they hit those first fiew notes to the title track as the opening number I had a grin from ear to ear. 90% of the album was played and I was in rock heaven.

What a band, what a sound, what a voice, what songs, what production. Brilliant brilliant, brilliant. Alice's voice was that good I had to put the binos on him to see if he was miming during 'Only women bleed'. It was him alright. Right on the money.

Am I gushing? @!#$ yeah. I have seen a few bands in my time but I can't ever remember being as completely engrossed as I was last Friday for 90 minutes. Simply Stunning.

The young bad was awesome. They played with ferocious power and great style. DeGasso on drums just blew me away with the double bass kickers going full pelt all night.

I was blown away the first time I saw Henry Rollins in 92Slayed by Ministry at the Palace MelbourneCrushed by Soundgarden at the Palaceand gobsmacked watching Steve Vai for the first time at the Palace but this performance was right up there with them all.

It made me good to be alive. In the past month or so I have seen Deep Purple. Brilliant with Steve Morse and KISS (What a crock of @!#$ they were). All show and no go. Stanley and Co should have stayed in Melbourne to see what a real performance and decent song writing is all about.

A brilliant rock and roll extravaganza and not a four letter word in sight. My mum would have been very proud of him.

And you know the best thing about Alice? Not once did he say "We love you Melbourne" You gotta be happy about that.

Regards Paul.

PS Paul Rogers has still got it. Bring on Eric Johnson next month at the Palace, where-else?